Colonial rule, resistance and the making of modern Namibia, c.1884-1945
What this domain tests
This domain covers German colonial rule, African resistance, the 1904-1908 genocide, and South African administration under the League of Nations mandate up to 1945. You need to connect colonial land and labour policies with resistance and with Namibia's later international status.
Core concepts
- German rule, 1884-1915: Germany treated South West Africa as a settler colony. Land was expropriated, railways built, and Africans subjected to passes, contract labour and corporal punishment.
- Genocide: the Herero uprising began in January 1904; General Lothar von Trotha's October 1904 extermination order, the Battle of Waterberg and concentration camps such as Shark Island caused tens of thousands of deaths. Nama communities under Hendrik Witbooi and Jakob Morenga also resisted and suffered.
- South African takeover: South African forces invaded in 1915. After Versailles, the League of Nations gave South Africa a 'C' mandate in 1920, which South Africa administered as if annexed.
- Resistance: the 1922 Bondelswarts rebellion was crushed by aerial bombing; opposition to passes, land loss and chiefly control continued.
Worked example
Question: 'Assess the significance of the 1904-1908 genocide for later Namibian politics.' Reasoning: move beyond death tolls. Explain land transfer to settlers, the creation of a cheap labour system, the legal racial order, and the memory of extermination that later nationalists used. Link each point to evidence, such as reserve boundaries or the 1922 rebellion, and conclude that the genocide shaped both material inequality and political identity.
Traps
Do not call 1904-1908 only a 'war'; it was a genocide with explicit extermination intent. Do not ignore Nama resistance. Do not say the League mandate gave South Africa sovereignty; it was a mandate, not annexation.